Almost one in two people living with HIV is a woman
Almost one in two people living with HIV is a woman. The eradication of the HIV epidemic requires the response to gender inequalities according to the Association for the Fight once morest AIDS (ALCS). In a press release, the ALCS underlined that the observation made on International Women’s Day is particularly worrying, adding that 43% of people living with HIV are women. The association noted the constant increase in this proportion since the beginning of the 1990s when this percentage was less than 18%, noting that this overrepresentation of women means that HIV has become the leading cause of death for women aged 15 to 49 years old worldwide.
UNAIDS has found that in some parts of the world, women who have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner are 1.5 times more likely to contract HIV than women who have not. suffered such violence. “The link between violence once morest women and HIV infection is well documented,” the statement said, noting that in Morocco the prevalence of violence once morest women reached 57.1%, according to the HCP’s national survey on violence once morest women and men.
According to the statement, the gender assessment of the national HIV response 2019/2020 conducted by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection with the support of UNAIDS recommended, in September 2021, the implementation of a strategy transformation on gender and legislative and regulatory reforms aimed at putting an end to the discrimination of which women are victims. In addition, the ALCS calls on the Ministry of Health as well as all the institutional actors concerned to urgently publish the entire report of the gender evaluation of the national response to HIV 2019-2020, to be implemented without wait for the recommended gender transformative strategy and to train health service providers on gender, human rights and non-discrimination.
The association also calls for the design, in consultation with civil society and community representatives, of a precise and budgeted action plan and the generalization, in consultation with the ministries concerned, of a gender-sensitive sexual education program.